Comics
‘Venom’ Almost Opened On an Entire Planet of Symbiotes!
Spoilers, as we look back as Columbia Pictures’ Venom, which opens with a ship crashing to Earth. On it are several symbiotes that we later learn were plucked from a passing comet. A planet of symbiotes, if you will. Unlike in the comics, the feature film adaptation gives each symbiote its own personality; Venom is an alien known as Venom and Riot is the same. Initially, the screenplay had opened on said comet, although director Ruben Fleischer felt it would be more entertaining left to the imagination and leaving things more mysterious.
“The beginning of the movie was a hard one. Like, how much do we want to tell the backstory?,” he explained to Cinemablend.
“There was a version [of the opening] where there was a planet crawling with tons of symbiotes that were collected and taken back to Earth by the Life Foundation.
“They had encountered them. But it kind of felt like, my instinct was it would be better to keep it more mysterious and just know that they’ve retrieved something from space. We don’t know exactly by what means or how. Jenny [Slate]‘s character later says they encountered it on a comet that was passing, and they retrieved these samples and brought it back to Earth. But yeah, I thought it was better just leave it a little bit mysterious, the backstory of the aliens.”
Venom producer Matt Tolmach confirmed they even worked on some concept art for the symbiote planet:
“We toyed with some artwork that we loved. … We toyed with it.
“But we wanted the movie — it’s out there. It’s part of our mythology. It’s part of our backstory, Klyntar and where this all came from and who knows what’s next. But, it made sense to, in this movie, to let the origin of those things kind of unravel in the storytelling is as opposed to going [to that planet].”
Who knows, maybe we’ll see this planet in a future film now that a sequel is all but happening. Still, I like the idea that Carnage (Woody Harrelson) is some sort of symbiote offshoot and not an existing alien entity as explained in the opening paragraph. You?
The supernatural world of Korean folk horror movie Exhuma grows larger with the arrival of prequel spinoff webtoon Maengjong this weekend, Variety reports today.
Naver Webtoon debuts Maengjong on May 30.
The series hails from Haemuri (Olgami) and will trace the high school origins of how shaman duo Hwarim and Bonggil, played by Kim Go-eun and Lee Do-hyun in the 2024 film, came together to face occultish threats.
The story is set to begin when “Hwarim, who has been concealing her identity following a childhood encounter with a snake spirit called Jin, crosses paths with Bonggil at their school.”
Variety notes that Exhuma director Jang Jae-hyun participated in the project’s early concept stage.
“We are presenting ‘Maengjong,’ a new series capturing the appeal of the horror-occult genre, ahead of the full summer season,” said Lee Jeong-geun, Naver Webtoon’s Korea webtoon content leader. “With the high school story of Hwarim and Bonggil, who left a strong impression in the film ‘Exhuma,’ enhanced by Haemuri’s characteristic tense direction, we expect it will be a welcome work for genre fans.”
“It is meaningful that the spin-off story of ‘Exhuma,’ loved by many audiences, expands by meeting the new grammar of webtoon,” said Lee Hyeon-jeong, managing director of the film business division at Showbox, which distributed the film. “We hope it will be a fresh experience for both film fans and webtoon readers.”
Exhuma was a breakout hit in 2024, becoming the first Korean occult film to surpass 10 million ticket buyers and the country’s highest-grossing film of the year. I wrote in my review that “the intricately woven Exhuma delivers one of the year’s biggest surprises in horror so far.”
The bond between Hwarim and Bonggil was one of the film’s highlights, making this prequel webtoon a must for fans.
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